Fallout 76, have 45 levels under my belt so what about it?

After my less than stellar review of the Fallout 76 B.E.T.A. what are my thoughts on the actual game?

Well sadly still less than stellar.

What is wrong with Fallout 76 from my P.O.V?

• Connectivity is my biggest complaint. I have been playing this off and on since the release for a few hours at a time. For all the time I have put into the game I have logged off the game only five times. Five times I have chosen to quit and save my game. Every other time I have stopped playing it is due to me just randomly getting booted from the server. I have no idea why this happens, but it is beyond frustrating. I’m in the middle of a quest and….”boop” server disconnect. I log back in and have to restart my quest again. Just wandering the wasteland and “boop.” I’m booted again. Why this is happening is beyond me.  Even more fun! My son will be playing Fallout 76 on his computer and I will be playing on the PS4. I get booted and he keeps playing. What is that?
• The PVP stuff is garbage. I have been tagged once as “Wanted” and for just utter bullshit too. I was in an event with another player and was helping fight off a horde of super mutants. I was blasting away with my shotgun. Random player (who is in the same event as we are working together but not on a team) decides to run in front of me to swing at the same super mutant. He is in my shotgun blast radius and takes damage. He then flags me as “Wanted” thus putting a bounty on me. Even better, he then runs out of the event and leaves me to get overrun by super mutants. Now I’m wanted and have no idea what to do about it. Well I guess I’ll just die and that I did. Later that day after logging back in after being “boop” server disconnected. I hear a gentlemen approaching as I am crafting weapons at a rifle range. Well, since I’m “Wanted” I guess I  would see what the PVP is all about. I don’t have much of a choice. I turn to attack and start blasting with  my shotgun. I hit him twice, but not before he swings just three times with looks to be a pickaxe and kills me. Even better….he is ten levels lower than me. WHAT THE FRAK IS THAT NONSENSE ABOUT!?!? I get there is some sort of PVP balancing in play, but that was beyond ridiculous. Three melee hits and I’m dead? He takes four out of five point blank shotgun blasts and is still kicking? I have no idea what goes into their PVP balancing issue, but it is beyond stupid! The only good part is that I was barley carrying any loot, the bounty was like 10 caps and I was now no longer “wanted” and could continue the game in relative peace.
• Hey did you know there is the option called Pacifist Mode? Yeah I didn’t for almost 20 levels. It stops friendly fire from setting people off and starting the whole PVP wanted level bounty hunting nonsense. That would have been sweet to know when I had started at level 1.
• It is a Bethesda game and it will have glitches, we all know this, but there are some that are just inexcusable. I give you the final test for the Fire Breathers  quest. Here you are tasked, as a fireman, to go into a mine fire and clear out the Scorched (feral irradiated humans that share a hive mind and have been infected with the Scorched Plague). I have run this five separate times. Why five times? Well for some reason, this quest just stops and locks my PS4 up every time I attempt it. When it has happened it is never in the same place. Hell, one of these times I even finished the mission and was on the way out when the game locked up. Well no  problem I did finish the mission, but upon logging back into the game….nope! I would have to try another time. I have since given up trying this mission after reporting this issue , as per the instructions that pop-up on screen, multiple times.
• Speaking of glitches is anything worse than when an objective creature or object spawns within a wall, in a rock, under a location that is not accessible, etc.? Even better is when a fallen enemy’s body just disappears right as you go to loot it. How awesome is it when a cargo drop comes in an leaves the box of loot inside of an overpass? My favorite yet was a super mutant who was attacking me and was invisible. I could hear him. He could hit me with a melee weapon, yet he was nowhere on my screen. Needless to say that killed me. Yeah Bethesda games have glitch issues. This time it is just a lot more of them and doubly irritating.
• The nebulous level of baddies in the world and how it is affected by players. Yup there is the whole starting area where beasties are a few levels higher. Then you hit the bigger outside world and beasties are equal or a few levels higher. Then you explore more and….wow creatures  start running at you that are 20+ levels higher. That is really disheartening. The reason behind this? Well it seems if you run through an area where a much higher level character was doing stuff, you have the pleasure of having to deal with monsters near their level. Well….that or bail and come back later when the area resets. It is another bit of annoying to deal with when you are running missions and have to bail because your level 38 guy doesn’t have the firepower, stims or armor to deal with level 68 super mutant butchers. That or you run to a mission area and everything is a few levels lower and no real threat. I have no idea from place to place if I am under or overpowered for the area.
• The lack of real NPC’s is still drek. Sure there are robots and computers who give mission, but it just isn’t the same. Give us some damn people so we can interact.
• Food and water consumption. Ugh! Even taking perks to help this, is annoying. I get the survival mode aspect, but sometimes it feels that is all I’m doing is finding something to drink. This is with 3 levels in Dromedary, Lead Belly and (so far) one level in All Night Long. This is supposed to help with thirst  and hunger issues. Hunger seems to be no problem, but my guy is always thirsty. I can’t imagine how annoying this would be without perks to slow this down.
• Real time V.A.T.S. garbage!
• Caps have really no purpose in this game except to pay for fast travel. Vendor prices are beyond stupid, so buying items is not a real option for spending the few caps you manage to gather from events and missions. I have never traded with humans so I have no idea if they want money and what kind of price they would charge. If it is like every other MMORPG, then the prices would probably be insanely stupid like every other player trading post/auction house. I use mine for fast travel purposes and to by the occasional over-priced stimpack when I’m low. I haven’t found how to make them yet....

The Scorchbeast will ruin your day!

What isn’t wrong with Fallout 76 from my P.O.V.?

• Well….so far the human aspect of the game. I have only once been annoyed by some asshat trying to get me involved in PVP. He followed me across the map as I did my questing. He just kept hitting me with a spiked tambourine and wearing a space suit. I just kept ignoring him and did my business. However, after fifteen minutes of this I had become pretty irritated. I logged out (one of my five times) and logged back in to get on another server. Problem solved. I had really hoped he would just go away when I showed no interest in fighting with him. Sadly that is not the case. It was also early in my gameplay and I had not yet blocking players and myself from game via the social menu. How glorious is that to be able to block other players and myself from other players. Humans are just the worst and this guy is a prime example of that. Besides him though everyone else has left me alone.
• The map is huge and exploring it is great stuff. I love this aspect of the game! Not knowing what location I am going to find next is the best part of this game for me. Plus throwing in cool locations like the Overlook Estate and the Torrance Mansion full of all manner of The Shining  reference was really cool. More of this please!
• Bethesda seems to be listening a little. They recently upped the amount of room in the personal stash for players. This helps with all the crap you need to collect to build and repair stuff. They added some bit to base building, but I have yet to bother with that. Yeah I’m level 45 and have yet to try and build a base. I just figure some ass will come wreck it so why bother? If they actually listen to concerns, and not just angry rants, then there is hope for this game.

Not my guy, but an all too common occurrence in the game. This place is lousy with super mutants!

Rando thoughts about Fallout 76

• Power Armor is everywhere, yet I still haven’t bothered with it. Ever since this series made Power Armor battery operated I have passed on using it. Yet every player over 25 is running around West Virginia in Power Armor. Do I even really need it? Well if I want to do nuke zones then yes. However,  I don’t want to chase down silo codes and deal with that crap. Maybe someday I will care, but for now I’ll pass on that and Power Armor.
• I miss killing raiders and slavers. Why not bring them into the game?
• There really needs to be an event timer on the map. Nothing is better than hot footing it across the map only to reach an event with a few minutes or less left.
• For all the people who cried we want multi-player Fallout what do you think? You wanted this and you got it. IS it worth it? I, and the three other people I know who play this series, have never wanted multi-player Fallout. The same for the Elder Scrolls games. Bethesda says the biggest want is multi-player. Whom are they asking this question? If they asked me my biggest want is a game with a huge map to explore, new gear and less glitches. I ignore humans, but I also still see them in game. After 40 hours with this game, I have never seen a group of players doing anything. I have seen players but they are all running solo. Where are these groups that are supposed to form? Where is all the teams of players running around doing stuff. They must all be on a part of the map I never visit or have yet to discover.

The Wendigo! Not Scorchbeast bad, but annoying on a whole different level.

Fallout 76 isn’t terrible, but it isn’t good. I am still playing because I want to get my monies worth out of it. I will soon hit 50 and that is when I will probably back away for a while. After level 50 your stats stop increasing so there isn’t really any reason to keep leveling. Sure you get more PERKS, but there is nowhere to equip them (yeah it is an equipment system for cool abilities based on your stats). I have a set of skills/PERKs that work and adding more with nowhere to equip them is meaningless to me. 

Anyway….I would not recommend this game to anyone until they fix a lot of problems. I makes me sad to say don’t play Fallout. It is a fantastic franchise, but they really missed the mark with Fallout 76. Maybe they will continue to fix issues and make it better. Maybe?